New in-ground in swampy Louisiana. Build is ON!!!

I think the tiles are straight. The plaster overlays some more than others giving it that appearance, I think mainly due to the variation in the tile. It has a little bit of a handcut look to it, part of its charm. It actually looks fine in person, well apart from the glaringly white thinset.
 
Sorry to hear about your dog, Eva. It is always so hard to say good bye....
At least you have water in your pool, and I do like the blue starfish. Those aqua Arctic Lagoon tiles are so pretty in the sun and water. They shine!

We are still waiting on the decking over to be lay around the pool, then they want to clean up and put sod down, then plaster.....I am not so sure about having sod at this time of the year either...those workers better show up tomorrow.
 
Eva - so sorry to hear about your pup. I suspect your vet might be right as it sounds very much like what happened to one of my dogs with everything appearing to be okay right up until the moment it wasn't. You've picked a great spot for her.

I think the tiles are beautiful. The iridescence with the sun shining is amazing. The entire look of the pool is great - the clean lines, the stone and the tile. I hope your electrician shows up today - we haven't seen ours in forever - but all of us in TX/LA know there is rain coming on Tuesday, "a soaker" so whatever work needs to get done needs to get done today. If they don't clean up the tiles on the front of your spa and the step tile, let me know - I'll send Bob over to help you have the conversation with the PB. Although I know you are very capable, it never hurts to have backup :) Besides, Bob may come back with some ideas. -Karen
 
I can see it now. Your new business will be called "Rent Bob" for all of your needs pertaining to taking care of business! All he will have to do is show up and stand with his arms crossed, mirrored sunglasses on, gun peeking out of his jacket. He will not have to say a thing. Just the mere presence will scare them into doing what is right! LOL

Kim
 
Well breakfast this morning consisted of coffee and a quarter of a xanax. As you know, there was that promise to get the trench dug for the electrician by 10am. Well I thought you'd all be shocked to find out, its 11am and there is no-one here to dig. My PB showed up about 9am with the digger, and a lot of pool chemicals, 2 brushes and a leaf net (no telescopic pole that I noticed though). Then the electrician turned up a 10am and marked a line for them to dig, but no workers, NONE.

So I've texted by PB and took another Xanax. I think I might have a smoothie for lunch in a few minutes, a mudslide is kind of like a smoothie right?
 
Well they finally rolled up at 12.30pm. I was okay with this because I was about 3 sheets to the wind when they finally turned up. They dug the hole. I can't smell gas so I'm guessing they didn't damage the gas line. They filled up said hole after laying conduit. The electrician was out here, so briefly I didn't even get to say hi, I'm guessing he is a member of the good old boys club with the inspection department because apparently he told them to fill up the hole, rather than leave it open for an inspection. Apparently he's going to grace us with power in the morning. Uh Huh, Right. We'll see. It sounds like its going to be another day for the breakfast of champions (coffee and xanax). The pool guys fished the light wires through and installed the pool light, the spa one they left on the spa bench. I have no idea why. The fact they got soaking wet doing it pleases me in a perverse sense. Still I think we are finally done for destruction of the yard now. So maybe we can plant some green stuff next week.

Oh and we got a quote for the gas hookup for the spa. For running maybe 6 foot of gas line - $500. What a fricking racket. At this point, though, I think both husband and I want to be done with it all, so we'll probably pay it. They are about the only company in town that will call you back, turn up on time and give an estimate in writing ahead of time. So while expensive, what choice to you have.

I was told to go ahead and brush the pool anyway, now it looks like pea soup. Also made the french gray finish go from looking even to looking like a streaky mess. I hope thats normal. Brushing a whole pool is vastly less exciting and a lot more work than I was imagining. So much for the wall whale. I've been told to brush with a metal bristled brush for the first 10 days.

Oh and the PB spun me some line of tosh about there being a grout you can use underwater to match the french gray to go over where the white thinset lines show through on the tiles, something that you can use after the plaster has had it's 30 day cure. Well then, I sure hope he isn't expecting his last payment before then. Because guess what was on my punch out list, written in red ink and bolded right along with a pretty photo of said problem...
 

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Well I have electricity run to the panel. They didn't connect the lights - left that for the pool builder. Sigh. Someone from the PB crew is supposed to be along to turn the system and pump on. Maybe.

The PB did show up and bring me my screen logic kit. I guess if someone comes to turn on the panel, I'll find out if it works. I'm hoping since its connected to a power line adapter it shows up on my house network and can run it all from inside. I had thought it needed a PC out there to run it, but since there is some kind of a box that connects to the 'router' aka power line adapter in the studio, I'm thinking it should just appear on the network. They need to come turn on the panel, I want to play dammit.
 
no wireless kit - I've had it hard wired into a power line adapter router in the studio. Got the power line adapter the other day, and the connection was excellent - plenty good enough to stream netflix on my laptop at any rate, we wanted to make sure it would suffice to provide internet for the studio anyway. If it had sucked we'd have had them run the ethernet to the house. But it wasn't needed so yay. It even puts out its own wireless connection point, so we would have a connection by the pool for the ipad/screenlogic and internet although we got a new wireless router at the same time and the new one reaches out there with as good a signal as in the house

The hard wire kit is kind of weird actually - it requires a 4 wire 22g connection from the easy touch to a little pentair box - called a protocol adapter and then that plugs into your ethernet port on either your modem or router. The electrician used cat5 and just used 4 of the wires. We haven't closed the walls in yet, so its not the neatest thing in the world. and I can't mount the box until the sheetrock goes up, but the bonus is, I don't think I have to leave a computer in the studio all the time, it should just run from any computer on the network so that will make life much easier.
 
Well. So the electrician came out and hooked up the electrical line from my breaker box to the easy touch breaker panel and thats about all he did. One of the pool crew came by to start the pump and the electrician had NOT hooked up the control cables from the easy touch to the pumps, nor installed the lights and he was definitely supposed to install the lights - apparently they need a junction box which separates the wet environment from a dry one. My PB has said his other guys are going to do it.

Oh and there was no open ditch inspection, and no inspector ever came around. At this point we have to assume he is part of the New Iberia "Old Boy Network" but I'm not happy. I get the distinct impression, neither is my PB. Still not my problem. He did do it correctly from what I can tell. Its all bonded correctly and grounded correctly, thankfully I'm educated enough on electricity to be able to tell. He also hooked up the screen logic box, which works! Yay. Can't get into the settings as the easy touch is still in service mode - just running the main pump for the moment to at least get the pool circulating and filtering out the plaster dust. I actually got in the pool today to try and brush it better - just standing on the benches. Because the water is a tad chilly. Screen logic says its 69*. I'm quite sad I don't need a thermometer. Froggy has been given the boot, I might have to change my avatar...

Oh and the pool guy chucked some chlorine tabs in the skimmers before he left. Its a miracle he got them working at all, since he had no tools with him to remove the skimmer plug. Luckily my house is like a Home Depot and we have tools for just about everything, including big enough 12pt sockets to remove a skimmer plug.

PB is coming out in the morning to add the rest of the chemicals he wants to add. I took the liberty of dusting off the old test kit, and me and PB are going to have a little discussion about numbers tomorrow. My calcium is much lower than we were expecting.

Oh and I have no pics whatsoever. I took a video, then got distracted by face timing my Mom and brushing the pool. Then it got dark, if I can turn the video into a gif I'll post it later or you'll have to wait for tomorrow for pics of pea soup flowing over the spillover.

Ok I kinda lied about completely no pics. My dog whose usual position is sleeping on the back of one of the couches has found her spa spot...

KHmTdR9.jpg
 
If this works I'm a genius, if not, a complete chump...
Oh and its only of the spillover, the only video I took of the bubblers working as well looks like a 2 year old with a potato videoed it. I'll take another tomorrow.

dt9jf.gif


Edit: I am in fact, a complete genius....
 
You must be a genius. It worked.
The control wiring for the pump is pretty simple. All you need to do is screw in the pump side. It has its own adapter. On the easy touch side it's just 2 wires. You land them on the contacts labeled j20. Green to green yellow to yellow. Should be no problem for a genius like yourself. Unless of course you don't want take the liability aspect away from your pool builder.
I am personally hooking up all wiring on everything. Not sure I trust pb and his crew. They told me they don't even use gfi breakers on equipment. Scary.
 
It's looking better and better. Can't wait to hear about the discussion with the PB tomorrow over the water's test numbers - they probably don't even pay attention at that point.

As an aside, I agree with KimKats - when I read my thread, I almost spit my tea all over my keyboard with the "Magic" animation - so funny. -Karen
 
Jimbo - I have one GFCI breaker in my pool panel...

I can't tell you what its for. Because the electrician didn't bother to label them...
Whatever it is, its the only single pole breaker.

I would never ever hire these electricians again, I don't care who I know that knows them. I don't think my PB will either.

My PB is wiring the rest of it. One of his guys - actually the guy that owns the subcontracting company, wired the easy touch to begin with, everything except the control wires to the 2 pumps, lights and power to the box, its the most beautiful job, all zip tied together and neat. I'm guessing he will do the stuff the electrician didn't bother to do, and at least he clearly knows what he is doing.
 

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